His spirit is part of the future the heritage of all mankind

“His spirit is part of the future, the heritage of all mankind. Bearing in mind the approach of the 21st century, this may be why she chose Saitama.” Word in the Tokyo Beatle community, however, is that the decision may have been guided by financial, as well as spiritual, considerations, and that Taisei Construction, the firm behind the project, is paying a large sum for the loan of the material.But even in the worst recession since the war, Japanese are still spending on the Beatles. Until the economic decline of the past two years, Japan exceeded even Britain, coming second only to the United States, as the world’s biggest market for Beatles memorabilia. Nowhere else, certainly in the non-English-speaking world, does Beatlemania take such varied, extreme and endearing forms.In a crowded field, the most eccentric of all Japanese Beatlemaniacs is Yasuhiro Honda, a man who permanently lost his perspective on life while still in primary school “It was at the house of a friend of mine,” he remembers.

“He played, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, and at that moment, the Beatles DNA entered my body and I was damaged for ever. The truth is that I have ‘Beatles cancer’, and ever since then it has been my dream to share ‘Beatles cancer’ with everyone.” Capitalising on his condition, Mr Honda has since established himself as the country’s leading dealer in Beatles memorabilia, spending four months of the year in Britain, and operating out of a cramped shop in western Tokyo. Prospective customers must prove that they are worthy by answering a brief questionnaire. “The first question is, ‘Do you like the Beatles?’,” he says “If there is any doubt: no membership. The second is: ‘When you are reborn in the next life, will you still like the Beatles?’” Nineteen-hundred people have sworn that they will, from the tropical island of Okinawa in the south to the snowy northern mountains of HokkaidoIn personal appearance, with his little round glasses, shoulder-length locks, and droopy moustache, Mr Honda’s look is that of late-Sixties Lennon, but his emporium contains objets touching on every conceivable aspect and period of the Four. By the door, individually wrapped in Cellophane, is a pile of British tabloids, marking significant dates in Beatles and post-Beatles history – such as the Sun’s “Sir Macca” front page from the day that Paul was knighted.

A newspaper seller’s billboard from the early 1970s bears the Evening Standard headline: “Paul Not Leaving Beatles Yet”. A glass cabinet contains a brick from the original Cavern Club (price 58,000 yen – about pounds 320). There is an original 1968 Corgi model of the Yellow Submarine for 170,000 yen (pounds 940), a demo single of “Please Please Me” for pounds 1,000, and numerous autographs, worth as much as pounds 10,000 each.The only thing that money can’t buy you is the contents of Mr Honda’s personal collection: his gold disc of the Let It Be album (presented to Phil Spector – worth about pounds 33,000), his sample of Yoko Ono’s calligraphy (bearing the Japanese motto, “Cherish Our Dreams”), and his framed photo of the band, hanging just below the ceiling. “When I sit at my desk,” Mr Honda says, “there they are: the Beatles are watching me. When I am sitting on the toilet: the Beatles are watching me. I cannot do a bad thing, because always the Beatles are watching me.” As another collector, Ichiro Yoneda, of the Glass Onion memorabilia shop, said in an interview with the Daily Yomiuri, “In Japan, people have a tendency to turn things into ‘Ways’: like the way of aikido, the way of judo, the way of the tea ceremony.

For some people, there is the Way of the Beatles.”What accounts for this kind of devotion, in a country which, culturally and geographically, is about as remote from Sixties Liverpool as you can get? From the beginning, the Beatles were a phenomenon in Japan, and their first and only live appearance in 1966 was one of the highlights of the decade. The venue was the Nippon Budokan – the Hall of Martial Arts, built for the Tokyo Olympic Games two years before. That in itself was a remarkable thing, involving delicate negotiations between the British embassy and the Japanese government, for the hall had never before been used for anything so frivolous as a pop concert. In the end, the fact that the Fab Four had been honoured by the Queen with MBEs carried the day with the doubtful Japanese authorities.The Beatles arrived at the tail end of a typhoon, and played five short concerts, amid the kind of security usually reserved for visiting heads of state.

Helicopters and patrol cars were on hand to transport the stars, and an American air base was put on standby in case the civilian airport became blocked by fans Eight thousand police were mobilised to manage the crowds. “Thousands of overzealous young persons, mostly female, were taken into custody,” records a history of the period, “but no further punishments were meted out.” In Mr Honda’s shop an original ticket for the concert sells for pounds 555.The concerts made a hundred million yen, and the security measures cost 90 million, but it was a pivotal moment in recent Japanese history. The mid-Sixties marked the end of the austerities of the post-war period, and the beginning of Japan’s ascent into the ranks of the major powers. In hosting the Olympics, and with attendant unveiling of the Bullet Train, new first-class hotels and a crop of gold medals, Japan had proved it could compete with the First World, less than 20 years after abject defeat and destruction. With the Beatles at the Budokan, it had shown it could enjoy itself as well.”The late 1960s were a wonderful time,” says Mr Honda. “In traditional Japan, old men had the power, and for the first half of the 1960s we just endured But at the time the Beatles came, young people took power That’s why almost everything in this shop is from the 1960s No key rings or T-shirts or CDs. Even the owner and manager looks like 1960s.” But, reluctant though he is to disclose his exact age, it is clear that, like many of today’s Japanese Beatlemaniacs, Mr Honda was a young child at the time of the Budokan gigs.Of the 70,000 members of the Beatles Club, the biggest of the fan organisations, only half were alive in 1966, and the average member is in his or her mid-30s.